U.S. Signals Intelligence System resources are allocated in the following areas: 35 percent are dedicated to the global war on terrorism; 35 percent are dedicated to China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia; 20 percent go to remaining strategic focus areas; and 10 percent are set aside for development in data acquisition, signals development, or analysis and production.

This NSA classification guide, dated 21 November 2011, covers signals intelligence material that as to be kept secret for more than the standard 60 years: see the Der Spiegel article The NSA in Germany: Snowden’s Documents Available for Download, 18 June 2014.

Summary of the third North Korea “rock drill,” a three-day meeting held by the North Korea Issue Management Team where NSA worked with the State Department to create strategy to support the State Department’s goals.

The Korea Issue Management Team held a rock drill in Hawaii designed to test the cryptologic system's capabilities in a war on the Korean peninsula. The scenario was a North Korean attack on South Korea.

SID’s Office of Target Pursuit has redoubled analytic efforts against North Korea, where results are often frustrating. Employing the “Hot Pursuit” idea implemented for the Iraq conflict, a multidisciplinary group within SID has been formed to focus on the target.

Since 1996, a Cryptologic Services Group special liaison in Seoul has been sending out an informal daily email newsletter for NSA staff targeting North Korea. The newsletter is focused on key intelligence issues encountered by U.S. Forces Korea. The liaison staffer is hoping to turn the newsletter into a blog, but is “not sure NSA’s computer systems or philosophy is ready for such a thing.”

Ambassador Sherman believes that North Korea will continue its nuclear program or may have already succeeded in developing weapons. SIGINT on the issue was "absolutely indispensable" and "critical for arms control and verification."

Rock Drill 5 tested the cryptologic capability for an allied counteroffensive into North Korea. It was the first exercise of its type to be held with a third-party partner, South Korea's Defense Security Agency.

A joint US Navy and NSA report, prepared three months after a US spy plane was forced to crash land in China, assesses the degree to which surveillance secrets were compromised: see the Intercept article Burn After Reading: Snowden Documents Reveal Scope of Secrets Exposed to China in 2001 Spy Plane Incident, 10 April 2017. […]

TOP SECRET//COMINT//NOFORN//X1
EP-3E Collision:
Cryptologic Damage Assessment
and Incident Review
Final Report
Prepared by the
EP-3 Cryptologic Assessment Team
July 2001
Classifie...

This 13 September 2010 presentation from the NSA’s OTP VPN Exploitation Team explains the work of the division: see the Der Spiegel story Prying Eyes: Inside the NSA’s War on Internet Security, 28 December 2014.

The daily demands of producing SIGINT use up everyone's energy and leave little time for innovation. Operation SIGINT ”” a "small team working on behalf of SID senior leadership to tackle today's impediments with innovative solutions in important, target areas" ”” is recruiting.

After 9/11, SID suddenly got an influx of requests from previously minor customers (like the departments of Interior and Agriculture), acquired many new customers, and had to interact differently with law enforcement. In response, CRD designed new products to be more flexible with secret documents (allowing them to be accessed outside of SCIFs, on mobile devices, etc.).

This NSA information paper from April 2013 describes the state of the agency’s intelligence relationship with its New Zealand counterpart: see the New Zealand Herald article NZ’s spy reach stretches across globe, 11 March 2015.

The senior intelligence officer for weapons of mass destruction proliferation will speak at a brown bag seminar on the topic: “If the Intelligence Community was so wrong about Iraq, how can the IC’s WMD assessments on North Korea and Iran be trusted?”

The chief of intelligence security issues describes an exciting career, which began with averting an assassination attempt against a congressional delegation by narco-insurgents in Asia. In the chief's opinion, the NSA needs better IT tools and functionalities, from web access to better PCs.

Signals Intelligence Directorate leadership decides where to expend the most resources based on the SIGINT Mission List. The list includes 15 critical functional missions -- each of which has an area of focus and an area in which SID decides not to devote as much attention, thus accepting some amount of risk. China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, and Russia are "regarded as 'trump cards'" and can take priority over any one of these missions.

SID is building a process for gathering requirements from customers using a “multi-intelligence” process. Based on success of this approach in Operation Iraqi Freedom, NSA is using it to support North Korea Campaign planning.

A team of SID experts is collaborating to uncover North Korea's global financial assets and intelligence on its leadership's financial activities. One key to its success is access to North Korean transaction data routed through foreign banks.

This agreement, dated 15 July 1999, includes a preamble describing the development of signals intelligence cooperation between the US and Israel since the 1950s: see the Intercept article Cash, Weapons and Surveillance: the U.S. is a Key Party to Every Israeli Attack, 4 August 2014.

﻿TOP S E C R E T/HVCCO
1. (S) preamblei in 1968 President Johnson and Prime Minister
Eshkol agreed that an intelligence exchange would take place
between the United States and Israel. This und...

The “key reads” process, first developed for Central Command needs in Operation Iraqi Freedom, has been expanded to more topics and customers. Key reads respond to specific customer requests in less than three days.